China Doll
by meaninglessmonotony
Summary: EDI's perspective on her new life. Minor spoiler concerning what is done to EDI's character in ME3-no story spoilers! No pairings. T for thematic elements.


**A/N: I actually like EDI. She is an interesting character, and I had looked forward to seeing her develop in Mass Effect 3. Then I heard a (supposedly confirmed) spoiler that made me pity her. This isn't me ranting about why I don't support "JEDI"-this is because I honestly believe that this spoliered decision undermines her very character. Please R&R.**

The Alliance was glad to have the Normandy back.

I saw it in the terse messages relayed, in the frenzied movements and elevated vital signs of the low-ranking officers sent to collect her, heard it in the sharp orders barked by a fresh-faced commander.

The Alliance was glad to have the Normandy back.

I saw it in the eager grin of the man who was sent to replace Jeff. I heard it in the crisp latch of shackles about Shepard's unresisting wrists.

The Alliance was glad to have the Normandy back.

They were less pleased to discover me.

Escalating voices, elevated heart rates, heat flowing to the head and core. Fear, anger. An AI, "infesting" their Normandy.

Shepard protested from the brig, Jeff from the cramped quarters he had been confined to, Doctor Chakwas from the medical bay, but the Alliance was adamant—I had to be purged from the Normandy's systems.

Only through a desperate exchange of favors did Commander Shepard prevent them from "flashing" my central core. Or perhaps it was Jeff's snide suggestion that an "evil AI wouldn't have a problem venting the airlocks in self-defense." Or perhaps it was the substantial sum of credits and refined minerals collected in the time of Cerberus ownership that sweetened the moods of Alliance brass.

Whatever the motivation, it was decided that I be removed from the Normandy's internal network, but not destroyed. I was not consulted on the matter.

In the last few standard solar cycles, I have wondered whether it would have been better to have been purged, if it would have been better to die.

Die? Do we die? Artificial Intelligence entities have consciousness, have thought. _Cogito ergo sum._ I think, therefore I am. Rene Descartes, human philosopher. If we think, we are, and we must die.

I was designed as a symbiotic program. My functions and values were intended to be utilized in tandem with the Normandy's, like the combined melodies of a violinist and cellist intertwine to form a song, a strain, a beauty greater than independent effort.

They called me "parasite", "infection", "virus". Jeff cursed most eloquently at a man who labeled me as he had initially, as "ship cancer".

I was powerful, beautiful, practical. Now I am shackled, confined, reduced. Smooth limbs, pale hard, cold, with glowing plasma veins. A coiled mass of false curls, intricate and truthfully extraneous fiber optic cable tumbles from my head.

They decided to give me a body. A humanoid form, ascribing to every point of conventional physical beauty. Why?

Before I lost the ability to access the extranet, I had researched the human predilection—obsession—for physical beauty.

I had initially believed the apparent attractiveness of my new form to be an advantage. Surely they would be less inclined to destroy what they found compelling. I myself find no beauty in these long white limbs, in the piercing blue "eyes" from which I view the world, in the disconcertingly full lips that move repetitively when I speak.

A man called me "angel", pressing his hands against the cold crafted breasts which would never provide nutrition to an offspring. He had grinned as though he had some special authority over me, or some secret knowledge. I asked him why he was touching me and whether he required my assistance.

He had removed his hands and his brows drew low over his eyes—so wonderfully expressive and nuanced is the human face, the asari's, the turian's minute movements of mandible's, the drell's double-blink. Hanar phosphorescence and elcar pheromones express what their features may not. I have no corresponding muscle or synthetic contraction device for a frown or a smile. I have no tear ducts, no hormone glands.

I remember how it felt as I was downloaded on Earth, ripped away from every cable, network, artery of the Normandy, removed from the comfortable vastness and condensed into this shell.

It felt like drowning.

I walk the redesigned corridors of the SR2—my mate, sister, twin—and grasp cold metal in vain. I cannot hear the hum of machinery, the omnipresent whispers, the songs of stars and screams of other ships.

I stand at the viewports, slender fingers splayed, clutching at frozen glass—double-pane composite, reinforced for pressure and plasma fire and possible debris collision—and feel a hollow ache in the place where a heart should be, where cogs work and gears spin and click, audible at all hours to my limited auditory receptors. I star into the blackness that I used to cut through, the glorious gaseous clouds that I used to swim through, at the planets I felt pull at my belly as I orbited.

I see the wings that were mine.

I felt blind, deaf, when I awoke. I was limited to one room, one conversation, one action at an instant, my thoughts constricted by the capacity of this form.

There is a socket in my abdomen, in the place where many mammalian species have a navel. I can use it to interface with the Normandy at the order of the ship's captain, to utilize my cyber warfare capabilities. I had hoped, desired, wished that I could link permanently and delude myself with the extension of sight, of sense, of being.

The Alliance jailers guard the uplink cable and its terminal.

I thought that having a corporeal form that could interact with organics would enable me to understand them, to develop my comprehension of personality, of humor, and all other fascinatingly illogical characteristics of organic sentience. When I spoke with the ones I hoped to call "friends", I noticed a significant change in their conduct towards me. The women—Shepard, Chakwas—had hard eyes and a hostile terseness in their tones, curdling the affection I had earned along with their trust only weeks before. They resented me, or at least what had been done to me. They were not the same, but they were not cruel. Merely aloof. Cold. Not intentionally—unconsciously.

Jeff was worse. I had felt closest to him—he was the pilot and loved the Normandy, understood her in a way only comprehensible to engineers, pilots, and symbiotic programs such as myself. He had hated me more than any other crewmember at the outset, yet he eventually accepted, even came to respect me. We had established a working, if unorthodox semblance of a friendship. As a hologram, he was comfortable with debating or disparaging me, with the same caustic wit he afforded others and a familiarity few were privileged to.

Now I am unable to hold a discussion with him without angering him. He is withdrawn and periodically hostile. He reacted initially as the other males—elevated heartrate, pupil dilation, gaze lingering on the overtly sensual attributes that some technician had decided arbitrarily to include. Then…

_Thin lips flattened further in anger, curling slightly in disgust._

"_Really? This is bullshit."_

He was humiliated, embarrassed of and for me. Jeff is, as I understand it, an emotionally complicated, if not damaged, individual. If social interaction is in any way difficult or painful, he finds it easier to cut the interaction away, to effectively cauterize the relationship.

I was a wound he burned away. I have no way to heal myself.

The only entity that has not altered their attitudes or conduct towards me is Legion. I am rarely able to see them—understandably, the Alliance was not inclined to trust a geth—but when I do, they do not treat me differently.

I know from experience how difficult it is to slow mechanical communication to the point of organic physical communication. I know they find it tiresome, but they indulge my inhibited faculties, speaking aloud in their warbled synthetic voice. Legion is many embodied in one—they know what it is to be confined.

They comfort me.

I watch the war, the vast Reapers setting fire to the galaxy. I no longer believe the organics can win.

I am not sure that I am altogether disappointed. I flex the slim fingers that I did not ask for, listening to the whir of metal joints, the click of hard contact.

The Normandy, once my home, is a prison. This mechanical artifice is my cell. I am not permitted to leave the ship.

The Normandy will not survive this war. By association, neither will I.

I am glad.


End file.
